Wolfwood's Life
by Knight of the New Moon
Summary: A story about Wolfwood's life up to the time he caught up with Vash after the fifth moon incident. Rated T for language later and violence.
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun.

Back story: Before meeting up with Vash again, Wolfwood found some lost technology. Recording technology, after figuring out how it worked, he used it to record his life story.

Prologue

Millie felt horrible, she felt like she wanted to die. The man she loved had been killed. She kept trying to find someone she could blame. The first option being God, but she knew that Nicholas wouldn't want her blaming Him for his death. If she had known who had killed him, who it was that pulled the trigger on him, maybe she could have found a little solace, knowing who to blame.

Millie was sobbing into her pillow, hardly wanting to believe that he was dead. She wished she could have had more time with him. She felt like she had never truly appreciated the time she had with him, that given even one more day, she may have been happy. The moment she learned of his death kept replaying in her head.

_Vash walked into the room, hanging his head. With the Cross Punisher behind him, "Millie, get Meryl. There's something I need to tell you two."_

_Millie had given him a puzzled look, "Okay Mr. Vash. But, why do you have Mr. Wolfwood's weapon?"_

_At this point tears began to stream down Vash's face, "Please just go get Meryl. I'll explain everything when you return," he said as he sat down on the bed._

_Millie left the room quietly, and headed down the hall to the room Meryl was staying in, all the time wondering what was wrong with Vash. When she reached the room she knocked on the door, "Meryl. Are you in there? Mr. Vash has something he needs to tell us."_

_Meryl came to the door, behind her was a half written report to the main office of the Bernardelli Insurance Society, "Alright Millie. Let's go then," she said as the pair walked back down the hall to the room Millie and Wolfwood had stayed in the night before._

_Vash was still crying when the girls returned, "Alright Mr. Vash, I brought Meryl just like you said to. Now will you tell me why you have Mr. Wolfwood's Punisher?" Millie asked, her normally chipper voice seemed a bit solemn, as if she knew what he was going to say._

_"Yes, I will. Today Wolfwood and I faced two of the Gung-Ho Guns. I left him so I could take on the one known as Cain the Long shot, I don't know who the other one was. When I saw Wolfwood in town after coming back, I assumed he had won, and hoped he hadn't killed someone else. When he disappeared, I noticed a trail of blood, I followed him._

_"I saw him in a church, slumped over, resting on his Punisher. It seemed that he had been praying. Wolfwood died today girls. I'm sorry." Vash got up from the bed, dried his tears, and left the room._

_"No. No. This... THIS CAN'T BE POSSIBLE!" Millie yelled, as she fell down into the bed, sobbing. Meryl stood behind her, with her hand covering her face, in an attempt to hide the tears, but it didn't work._

It had been hours since that happened, and Millie was pacing back and forth, not watching where she was going, not that she could have seen anything through her tears even if she wanted to. A moment later, she noticed that she had hit her foot on something. When she looked down to see what it was, she noticed that something had fallen out of it. It was strange, a small rectangular object with holes in it.

She went in search of Vash, to see if maybe he knew what it was. She found him right outside the door to the house, leaning against the wall, "Mr. Vash. Do you know what this is?" Millie asked, holding it up so Vash could see.

His eyes went wide, and he snatched it from her, "Millie, where did you find this?"

"It fell out of one of Mr. Wolfwood's bags."

"Bring me to that bag." Vash said quickly. She complied, leading him to the bag. Vash immediately started going through it, tossing out more and more of these strange things.

"Mr. Vash, are you sure you should be going through Mr. Wolfwood's things like that?"

Vash then pulled a larger object out of the bag, "Millie, do you have any idea what you've just found?"

"Well, no. I've never seen anything like those."

"This is lost technology. It was used for recording. The only question is what's on the tapes." Vash said, putting the thing he called a tape into the larger object. After pressing a button a voice started coming out of the device, it was Wolfwood's voice.

"I hope this thing is on. A big hello to whoever is out there listening to this tape. My name is Nicholas D. Wolfwood. I'm a traveling priest, and a gunman. My life may not have been extraordinary, but for some reason I feel the need to make a record of it. And this seems as good of a way as any."

The sound stopped when Vash pressed another button, "Go get Meryl. Now," he yelled excitedly.

End Prologue

A/N: All of the following chapters will be first person, they will be the tapes of Wolfwood's life.


	2. Abuse

Disclaimer: I do not own Trigun.

Abuse

"Alright Vash, what is this all about," Meryl asked, yawning, "Some of us need sleep."

"A story. Wolfwood's story," Vash said, the initial excitement of having something to remember his best friend by was gone. His voice was as dull as when he told them the news of Wolfwood's death.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well Meryl," Millie said, her voice sounding extremely sad, "It seems that Mr. Wolfwood recorded his entire life's story onto some lost technology."

"Are you serious," Meryl asked, now fully awake.

"Yes. I thought you might like to hear about his life too," Vash said, pressing the play button. Wolfwood's voice carried through the room.

_I lived my life in perpetual fear from a very young age. A fear of my guardian, and what he would do to me. The man who was supposed to keep me safe, who was supposed to protect me from harm. Daily beatings were expected. I remember going to the schoolhouse, and always having to make up excuses for my bruises. Thinking back, I wonder why none of my teachers ever got suspicious, maybe they didn't care._

_It started out with just a slap here or there, when I did something really bad. When he lost his job, he started drinking, and then the beatings became more severe. The more he drank, the more he beat me. Sometimes, he would even break my bones._

_I remember the first time he broke on of my bones, I was six years old, and it was my friend Roland's birthday. I came home from the party, having actually enjoyed myself for the first time since he started beating me. But I was late. As soon as I came in the door he punched me in the gut, "Where the hell were you, you little bastard," he yelled at me. I didn't answer, I just sat the, my back to the door, hunched over holding my gut. He kept yelling, and kept hitting. And then it happened, something in him snapped. He picked me up by the neck, looked at me with those hateful eyes, and threw me against the wall. The pain in my arm was excruciating, it felt like it was on fire. I even remember the excuse I used when my friends asked me why I was in a cast the next day. I told them my guardian was teaching me how to ride a tomas, and I had fallen off, they all believed it._

_Nothing I did was good enough to save me from the pain. There were times he would make me do something wrong, just so he could beat me, like when I was doing he dishes, he would come behind me and shout in my ear, causing me to drop whatever I was cleaning, and it broke. He would then beat me for breaking it. It seemed like he blamed me for everything that had ever gone wrong in his life._

_My greatest fear came the first day he pulled his gun on me. I thought he was going to shoot me, luckily he never got angry enough to do that. But the fear I felt was indescribable, thinking that my life would end. It was that day that he started to beat me with the butt of the gun. I thought the pain would never end._

_The only reason I never told anyone is because he threatened to kill me if I did._

_One day, when I was seven, I decided to take things into my own hands, I would no longer live in fear of my guardian's gun. So one night, while he slept, I snuck into his room and took the gun. The next morning, instead of going to school, I ran all the way to the other side of town as fast as my little legs could take me. I was going to bury the gun in the alley between the saloon and hotel. Just as I finished digging the hole, my guardian came up behind me, "Nick, what are you doing here, shouldn't you be in school," he asked, trying to sound like he really cared, since he was in public._

_With a heavy fear in my heart, I turned to face him, his gun in my right hand. I should have known better than to bury it behind the saloon. He stopped acting liked he cared the second he saw the gun, "You little shit! What the fuck do you think you're doing with my gun," he shouted. I didn't respond, I just put the gun up and pointed it at him, "What? You're gonna shoot me," he said with a laugh, "You're too cowardly to ever do something like that,". Those were the last words my guardian spoke, as he stepped forward with his fist raised, I pulled the trigger._

_I remember a laugh escaping my lips, a great burden had been lifted from me. Seeing him stop dead in his tracks like that, and fall backwards. I felt like I had defeated the devil himself. Fearing what might happen to me next, I finished what I started and buried the gun, then I ran home as fast as I could._

_A few hours later, the sheriff came to my house. I acted surprised when I heard that my guardian was dead, and I was taken to the mayor's office. I wasn't exactly sure why, until I arrived._

_It was at the mayor's office that day that I met him, the man with red eyes that called himself Chapel. He told me that I had the potential to be a great gunman. He said that if I came with him, he would teach me. The prospect of leaving my past behind, to go train somewhere to be a gunman excited me. I eagerly accepted his offer, and with the hope for a brighter future, I prepared to leave with him the next day._

_That evening, Chapel introduced me to something that has influenced my life almost as much as guns. He introduced me to the Bible, and his interpretation of it's teachings. I was told that mankind was full of more people just like my guardian. He said that these people needed to be punished,_

_After that, he took me to the store, and replaced all of my tattered clothes. With everything we needed for me that night, the bill ran up hundreds of double-dollars. He happily bought these things for me, he showed me a deeper care than my guardian ever had. The next day, we took off on a long journey, to the place where I would train for the next ten years of my life. Little did I know, that things were about to go from bad to worse._


	3. Chapel the Evergreen

Disclaimer: Trigun does not belong to me. I am just borrowing the characters for this story.

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Training with Chapel, in the complex, wasn't that different from living with my uncle. There were still beatings, but they were less severe and less frequent. Though I guess looking back, many things were different, small things, but they were there. Chapel fed me better for one, when I was with my uncle he'd eat a steak while I ate a sandwich, made on stale bread, when I was with Chapel whatever he ate, I ate the same.

Chapel seemed to care about me more than my uncle. It was a relief not to wake up each morning dreading getting beat from a drunk man who hated your guts. My uncle looked on me with eyes colder than the air in the dead of a desert winter night, and though I couldn't see Chapel's eyes I know that he looked at me as an equal being under God.

Chapel looked at most people like that, there was two men who came, late in my training, that he looked on as more than just equals, almost as superiors. One was a young man who wore a white coat and a skull on one shoulder. His name was Legato. His eyes were even colder than my uncle's, like he had a contempt for all living beings. The other was evil, no other way to describe the aura he eminated. He had platinum blond hair that he wore slightly spiked, and wore a strange white body suit. He called himself Knives. It was a name that fit him. His eyes pierced to my very soul like searing hot knives. striking me with a sense of fear and awe.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself again. I don't meet those two for quite awhile.

When we first reached the complex, I stood in awe, we were right near the city of Neo Philadelphia. But, what was really important was that the complex, was a ship that survived the fall. I had trouble adjusting to the lost technology that surrounded me. As a man of the church how could Chapel just... horde all of this away from the people?

The day after we arrived my training began, he gave me a simple handgun, not too powerful, but he thought it best for me to start with something weak. As time went by he would keep giving me new guns, more powerful guns, but I was to keep the old ones in memory of the times when I was weaker and untrained.

With each new gun I received I felt a great sense of achievement. Something I can't really find the words to describe. But, it was the third gun that brought with it the greatest gift of all.

With my third gun, still a simple handgun, I received a Bible. Chapel said, "Nicholas my boy, now that you are able to properly defend yourself, it is time I teach you about God. God is a powerful ally to have on your side, and as long as you use these guns to punish the wicked, then He will always be on your side."

I didn't really understand what he meant at the time, I was only eight and a half years old. But as time went on, I learned what it truly meant to fight for God. Or what Chapel wanted me to believe it meant. He always told me, "Nicholas, the evil people in this world need to be punished for what they do. It is our place, as men of God, to punish them."

I took this in and put the duty upon myself to punish those that would bring harm to children. And also to protect those same children from harm as best I could. I took that oath at the age of thirteen.


End file.
